Suburban characteristics

15481 Views 36 Replies 23 Participants Last post by carlisle, May 9, 2007

city_life

Discussion Starter · May 3, 2007 (Edited)

United States/Canada/Australia/New Zealand all seem to have a similar suburban areas where each house is detatched and has more land, whereas cities in Europe are more residential and many people live in apartments. The suburban areas are quite dense.Example; london all the houses are build attached togeather (town houses or terraced house). what do you think/know about these types of neighbourhoods? Why are they like that?

Share the characteristics of your suburb and others from aroud the globe.

If you have any Photos for this threat, please add them.

1 - 20 of 37 Posts

monkeyronin

· #2 · May 3, 2007

Typical contemporary Toronto suburb.

Most cities will also have more established urban suburbs. This is Mississauga, outside Toronto, pop. 700,000.

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Xelebes

· #3 · May 3, 2007

Europe built their cities under these conditions:

Right after devastating fires (e.g. London)

Built after devastating sieges (e.g. Kiev, Dresden, Vienna)

Built to ward off devastating sieges

And the sort.

For the most part, New World houses didn't have these problems, except fires which ravaged New York, Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco (earthquake), Halifax). There has only been a handful of cities that have been initially designed to fend off sieges (Halifax, Quebec City, Edmonton, New York, Fort Worth). Beyond that, you had had massive land leases granted to immigrants who settled on farms in the Great Plains where htey each had a barn and a farmhouse. Once the Great Depression came, people left the Great Plains to seek work on the Eastern Seaboard and California. WWII hit and a new generation was born with returning soldiers, each of them dreaming of having homes to raise their children. They realised that farming was no longer viable but there was massive reconstruction going on so they chose to live in the cities near where their farms used to be.

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Johnnydemattos

· #4 · May 3, 2007 (Edited)

TEST

Kane007

· #5 · May 4, 2007

Xelebes said:
Europe built their cities under these conditions:

Right after devastating fires (e.g. London)

Built after devastating sieges (e.g. Kiev, Dresden, Vienna)

Built to ward off devastating sieges

And the sort.

For the most part, New World houses didn't have these problems, except fires which ravaged New York, Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco (earthquake), Halifax). There has only been a handful of cities that have been initially designed to fend off sieges (Halifax, Quebec City, Edmonton, New York, Fort Worth). Beyond that, you had had massive land leases granted to immigrants who settled on farms in the Great Plains where htey each had a barn and a farmhouse. Once the Great Depression came, people left the Great Plains to seek work on the Eastern Seaboard and California. WWII hit and a new generation was born with returning soldiers, each of them dreaming of having homes to raise their children. They realised that farming was no longer viable but there was massive reconstruction going on so they chose to live in the cities near where their farms used to be.

^^ Simplistic but basically you've hit the nail on the head!

I know that Post WWII the New Zealand government decided that every vet would be entitled to their own parcel of land. At about the same time the BABY BOOM was getting underway and the personnel motor car was getting, well, personnel.

Voila the birth of "SUBURBIA" and the FREEWAY, and the convenience store, and the supermarket, and the...

Note: this was the period that these really got going. We all know the Germans invented freeways back in the 1930's.

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ranny fash

· #6 · May 5, 2007

the uk has a lot of sprawling suburbs.

kurakura

· #7 · May 5, 2007 (Edited)

Suburban characteristics:

1) bad public transport or worse still, none

hno:

2) void of skyscrapers (except in crowded countries, eg HK, Singapore, Seoul etc)

3) boring and depressing

This is an example of suburban housing in Singapore. 90 percent of the Singapore's population live in these.

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ilcapo

· #8 · May 5, 2007

The suburbs in sweden are a mix of typical suburban rowhouses/villas, regular apartments in suburban-style (not very dense), and alot of "commieblocks" between 3-8 stories high.. these were built in the 70's during the "million programme" when they built around a million apartments in mainly stockholm, gothenburg and malmo.

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zachus22

· #9 · May 5, 2007

Thanks for posting that Mississauga picture, it's actually somewhat nauseating how many houses developers can fit into such a small area.

Can someone post a bird's-eye view of an American suburb? I'd like to see some super dense American burbs.

city_life

Discussion Starter · #10 · May 5, 2007

Some Pics i snipped on live maps

Chicago

Cleveland ( very low density)

Cleveland

Las Vegas

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city_life

Discussion Starter · #11 · May 5, 2007

London suburbs

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Xusein

· #12 · May 5, 2007

Some typical Hartford-area sprawl...this area is pretty new. And it's near the mall, it's sure to boom.

This picture is in South Windsor, which is pretty much an exurb of Hartford. Where the cul-de-sacs meet the farms.

About 15km northeast of Downtown Hartford.

There are a few "dense" areas...the majority of the houses here are three floors, and there are a few apartment towers lying around. Even a few "commieblocks". This is New Britain, which is an industrial city of 70,000.

Also 15km from Downtown Hartford, but southwest.

But typically, low-density is the norm here.

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city_life

Discussion Starter · #13 · May 6, 2007

In the UK, the government is seeking to impose minimum densities on newly approved housing schemes in parts of southeast England. The new catchphrase is 'building sustainable communities' rather than housing estates. However, commercial concerns tend to retard the opening of services until a large number of residents have occupied the new neighbourhood.

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globill

· #14 · May 6, 2007 (Edited)

It's really hard to make generalizations about American suburbs, particularly those in the Northeast and Midwest that grew up with a strong commuter rail system. In Chicagoland, for example, there are almost 400 suburbs, most of which have varying degrees of density depending on the distance from their commuter rail stations. In the last ten years, the "suburban downtowns" (areas closest to the train stations) have become a very hot area for development.

This is just a sampling of the "new suburbia" being built in Chicago suburbs. There are literally hundreds of such projects either completed/u/c, or proposed.

Note, none of these developments are in Chicago (or Evanston Oak Park). If you want to see more check the following thread http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=221173

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zachus22

· #15 · May 6, 2007

I just find there's a quality about American suburbs that Toronto's just don't have. It seems to me like less planning goes into suburbs here, as developers are happy just to make literally a grid of 3000 square foot homes. In the States, it seems like builders pay more attention to neighbourhood landscaping and don't mind giving a house more property even if it does mean a lot more land used.

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globill

· #16 · May 6, 2007 (Edited)

I think it's impossible to compare Toronto suburbs and American suburbs.

zachus22

· #17 · May 6, 2007

globill said:
I suppose you totally ignored my thread about the densification of Chicago's suburbs. This trend is happening all over the country, even in places like Ogden Utah.

And why compare Toronto's suburbs to America's????

Shall I compare Chicago's suburbs to Canada's?? After all Chicago's metro is 1/3 the size of Canada, whereas Toronto's is 1/50 the size of America.

Which analogy would be fairer?

Well you basically forwarded my point. The shot of Mississauga shows how dense Toronto suburbs are made to be. Tell me Globill, if Toronto's metro population is just so damn small, why are its suburbs so damn dense? My grandma lives in Schaumburg - a suburb of Chicago - and I can tell you they don't make em that close there.

And we are comparing suburbs, are we not?

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globill

· #18 · May 6, 2007

Schaumburg lags way behind the following suburbs in terms of walkability, urban living....

Evanston, Oak Park, Cicero, Highland Park, Park Ridge, Glenview, Des Plaines, Niles, Waukegan, Joliet, Elgin, Aurora, Naperville, Highland Park, Mundelien, Lake Forest, Elmhurst, Hinsdale, Berwyn, Forest Park, Deerfield, Glenview, Skokie, Lincolnwood, Mount Prospect, and probably another 15 or so suburbs where they are building up their downtowns.

Schaumburg is to most native Chicagoans, the poster child for poor suburban planning. It does not define the metro.

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globill

· #19 · May 6, 2007

and if your opinion of American suburbs is based on your time at your grandma's in Schaumburg....an awful lot begins to make sense.

I'm pretty sure that NONE OF THE PROJECTS I posted above are being built in Schaumburg.

LtBk

· #20 · May 6, 2007

I wish Baltimore suburbs(except for Towson) had urban style developments for their suburbs.

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